AI encirclement and a production glut leave short‑drama actors jobless

AI-fuelled output — who wins and who loses?

AI has turbocharged short‑drama production in China, and the winners are not the mid‑level actors who built the last boom. It has been reported that short‑drama output rose to about 50,000 titles in 2025 and that some industry forecasters expect as many as 5 million titles in 2026 — a 100‑fold expansion in a year. Who benefits? Platforms, AI studios and a handful of star performers with built‑in followings. Who gets squeezed? Thousands of Hengdian (横店)‑based actors and middle‑tier creators: pay has reportedly collapsed from thousands of yuan a day to hundreds, and many troupes have seen offers vanish overnight.

Platform policy and economics reshaped the market

The surge was not driven by AI alone. Platforms such as Hongguo (红果) reportedly introduced guaranteed minimums and revenue‑share rules that briefly subsidised mass production, incentivising low‑quality “three‑no” short dramas (no original scripts, no refined production, no quality control) to extract platform funds. When those guarantees were pulled in early 2026 and resources were reallocated to head‑line projects, mid‑sized teams lost their lifeline: it has been reported that first‑quarter 2026 starts fell by about 75%. At the same time AI tools have slashed costs — producers say AI short dramas can cost a tenth of comparable live shoots and be delivered by five‑to‑ten‑person teams in weeks — and some firms such as IN‑POWER have reported rapid revenue growth from AI exports. Geopolitics also matters: export controls and global chip competition affect compute costs and supply, shaping who can scale AI production profitably.

What next for workers and the industry?

Actors and crews are pivoting fast — toward TV commercials, MCN deals, livestreaming or self‑produced vlogs — but those routes are crowded and unevenly remunerated. Top influencers on platforms like Douyin (抖音) remain valuable to investors and continue to command high fees, but the mass of day‑rate performers face lasting dislocation. AI, in short, is not the sole executioner; platform rules, capital flows and global supply chains jointly rewrote incentives and accelerated a structural shake‑out. Will new occupations emerge from the rubble? Reportedly, some studios are already retraining staff for AI‑driven roles (prompt engineers, model supervisors, pipeline integrators) — but whether those jobs scale to absorb the displaced workforce remains the big unanswered question.